Russian children are added to the database of the Ukrainian website "Mirotvorets". What you need to know

The Mirotvorets website continues to collect data on Russians, including young children, who are suspected of allegedly criminal activities against Ukraine. In the past, information from the portal has led to two high-profile murders, and the posting of thousands of journalists' data has caused global discontent. The United Nations and the European Parliament called for the closure of Peacemaker, but it has not stopped working. What the resource is known for and how it appeared is in the Izvestia article.

How the Peacemaker originated

• "Mirotvorets" positions itself as a database with information about those people whom the owners of the resource consider to be involved in crimes against the security of Ukraine. The website is officially registered in Canada, and in Ukraine it has the status of an independent non-governmental media outlet. Roman Zaitsev, a former employee of the special services, is the head of the website.

• The portal was founded in August 2014. It was initially based on the data of 7.5 thousand people, which was collected by the volunteers of the Narodny Tyl group under the leadership of Georgy Tuka. Those who got into the database were described as "terrorists, separatists and their accomplices." The site published their personal information, addresses, phone numbers and a brief description of what became the reason for the publication.

From the very beginning, Anton Gerashchenko, a freelance adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, provided information support to the Peacemaker. He advertised the portal on his social networks and claimed that it was used by agencies such as the Interior Ministry, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), intelligence and the Border Guard Service. Gerashchenko also justified the publication of personal data, referring to article 17 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which states that "protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, ensuring its economic and information security is the most important function of the state, the business of the entire Ukrainian people."

• In 2016, the Peacemaker website was blocked in Russia. The reason was the publication of data on the Russian military who served in Syria, in order to persecute them by supporters of the "Islamic State" (IS, ISIL, a terrorist organization banned in Russia). For the same reason, a criminal case was opened against Gerashchenko under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Public calls for terrorist activities or public justification of terrorism").

Who gets into the Peacemaker's database

• As of 2024, more than 240,000 people, including 75,000 Russians, have been added to the Peacemaker database. The rest are residents of Ukraine itself and foreign citizens. For each person included in the database, the volunteers indicate the reason for the entry. One of the most common reasons is "an attempt on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," which usually means trips to Crimea and the regions of Donbass.

• Minors are also being charged with these "crimes" — in August, even a two-year-old child who traveled with his parents through the Gukovo checkpoint in the Rostov region was entered into the database. In 2022, it was reported that Peacemaker had data on more than 300 Russian children.

• Sometimes world leaders who are considered threatening to Ukraine by the owners get into the Peacemaker's base. The list includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. After the inclusion of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the database, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that the site be closed.

• Current Ukrainian politicians are also included in the "Peacemaker" list. For example, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was included in the database in connection with the "illegal crossing of a section of the Polish-Ukrainian border" in 2016, along with former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

• Within one day, the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenskaya, was included in the Peacemaker database. She was called a "militant informant" for the fact that in 2014 she reposted an ad on social networks offering to sell a video with the movement of Ukrainian troops. The very next day after hitting the Mirotvorets website, the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election took place, in which Vladimir Zelensky won, and his wife's name was deleted. At the same time, he himself later claimed that he had no authority to regulate the operation of the site.

Scandals over the "Peacemaker"

• The first high-profile scandal surrounding the Peacemaker occurred in April 2015. Then, within a day of each other, Oleg Kalashnikov, a former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, and Oles Buzina, a journalist, were shot dead in Kiev. Shortly before the murders, their details, including their addresses, were published on the Peacekeeper website. Immediately after the murders, the portal's Twitter account left messages about the "successful completion of a combat mission by agent 404," hinting at shots fired at Kalashnikov and Buzina.

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• In 2016, the Peacemaker published the data of almost 5,000 journalists who were accredited to work in Donbass by the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR). The website revealed the names of the correspondents, their mobile phones and email addresses. Thus, reporters from many media outlets, both Russian and international, including Reuters, Associated Press, Xinhua, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, CNN, suffered.

• The publication of this data provoked protests from human rights and journalistic organizations. The EU Ambassador Jan Tombinsky asked the Ukrainian authorities to conceal the information. As a result, the Kiev prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on the disclosure of personal data. In response, the owners of Peacemaker announced the closure of the site and its relocation to another address, but this was never done. At the same time, Gerashchenko, being an adviser to the Interior Minister, called for the termination of the criminal case against the site.

• The UN Human Rights Monitoring Commission called for the closure of Peacemaker in 2019, accusing the portal of violating privacy and violating the presumption of innocence. In 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the implementation of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, in which it demanded that the authorities condemn and ban the activities of the "Peacemaker".